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Golovkin, who has been widely tipped to be boxing’s next superstar, takes on Willie Monroe Jr in California on Saturday night.

Gennady Golovkin, after defeating Nobuhiro Ishida, of Japan, in their WBA middleweight title fight.

Image: Lionel Cironneau

Gennady Golovkin, after defeating Nobuhiro Ishida, of Japan, in their WBA middleweight title fight.

Image: Lionel Cironneau

WERE YOU ONE of the millions of people who forked over money in the hopes of watching the ‘fight of the century’ between Floyd Mayweather Jr and Manny Pacquiao?

Mayweather was risking his 47-0 record against a man that was long rated as the best pound-for-pound boxer in the world by sporting and boxing websites. These, you told yourself, are the two best fighters of this era. How could this not be an entertaining fight?

Casual boxing fans made it very clear how disappointed they were in the days after the fight. Even Mike Tyson took to Twitter to tell fans how “underwhelmed” he was.

The cold hard fact is people don’t want to spend ridiculous amount of money to see brilliant, but boring technical boxing. They want brutal slugfests that end with one man knocked out.

They want Gennady Golovkin – the quintessential crowd-pleaser.

Kazakh knockout artist Gennady Golovkin, who has won 19 consecutive fights by knockout, is the one man who could possibly make a Mayweather fight entertaining. Although Gennady insists he’d move from 160 lbs to 154 lbs to fight Floyd, the dream fight is highly unlikely because, for Floyd, the risk far exceeds the rewards for his last fight.

Golovkin’s been calling out big names in the division for years, doing everything he can to get a fight with a name like Alvarez, Sergio Martinez, Julio Cesar Chavez Jr or even Cotto, but nobody seems to want to get in the ring with him.

But for Golovkin, the 33-year-old undefeated middleweight world champion, it is only a matter of time before he becomes a superstar. He may not be the most technical boxer but very few boxers, if any, possess his punching power. He currently has the highest knockout percentage in middleweight history – 90.1%, higher than Tyson after 32 fights.

If there is a mark against Golovkin, it is the fact that he doesn’t have the resumé against the division’s very best. But he can only fight the people put in front of him and he has had some wins over solid contenders.

He knocked out both Matthew Macklin and Daniel Geale (Miguel Cotto’s next opponent) in three rounds. He battered England’s Martin Murray in his last fight, with the referee mercifully stepping in to end Murray’s punishment in the eleventh round.

This Saturday he faces Willie Monroe Jr at The Forum in Inglewood, California. Monroe (19-1, 6 KO) is a tricky southpaw fighter who holds a win over veteran Bryan Vera. But on HBO’s ‘The Fight Game’, Max Kellerman summed up the thoughts of pretty much everyone when he was asked if Monroe had any chance at ending Golovkin’s streak. His one word answer was: “Nope”.

So why is it worth tuning in for?

First and foremost, a Golovkin fight is always guaranteed to be entertaining and there is a very, very high chance this fight ends with a knockout. Secondly,’Triple G’ will be a future opponent of Ireland’s Andy Lee, if the Limerick man holds onto his title long enough. Golovkin has made it very clear that he wants unification fights with WBC champ Miguel Cotto and WBO champ Lee.

Looking further down the road, Oscar De La Hoya has already started selling tickets to board the hype-train for boxing’s next megafight – Canelo v GGG.

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